I Drove a Close Friend of the Family to the Emergency Room – and he went from peaky to barely responsive during the journey.
Our family friend has always been a bigger-than-life character. Sharp and not prone to sentiment – and hardly ever declining to a further glass. Whenever our families celebrated, he is the person gossiping about the most recent controversy to involve a regional politician, or entertaining us with stories of the shameless infidelity of different footballers from Sheffield Wednesday over the past 40 years.
We would often spend Christmas morning with him and his family, prior to heading off to our own plans. But, one Christmas, some ten years back, when he was supposed to be meeting family abroad, he took a fall on the steps, holding a drink in one hand, a suitcase gripped in the other, and fractured his ribs. Medical staff had treated him and told him not to fly. Thus, he found himself back with us, trying to cope, but seeming progressively worse.
The Day Progressed
The morning rolled on but the humorous tales were absent like they normally did. He maintained that he felt alright but his condition seemed to contradict this. He endeavored to climb the stairs for a nap but couldn’t; he tried, carefully, to eat Christmas lunch, and did not manage.
Thus, prior to me managing to don any celebratory headwear, my mum and I decided to get him to the hospital.
The idea of calling for an ambulance crossed our minds, but what would the wait time be on Christmas Day?
A Worrying Turn
By the time we got there, his state had progressed from poorly to hardly aware. People in the waiting room aided us help him reach a treatment area, where the characteristic scent of clinical cuisine and atmosphere permeated the space.
Different though, was the spirit. There were heroic attempts at holiday cheer everywhere you looked, notwithstanding the fundamental sterile and miserable mood; decorations dangled from IV poles and portions of holiday pudding went cold on tables next to the beds.
Positive medical attendants, who no doubt would far rather have been at home, were bustling about and using that great term of endearment so particular to the area: “duck”.
A Subdued Return Home
After our time at the hospital concluded, we made our way home to cold bread sauce and holiday television. We watched something daft on television, likely a mystery drama, and engaged in an even sillier game, such as Sheffield’s take on Monopoly.
The hour was already advanced, and snow was falling, and I remember feeling deflated – was Christmas effectively over for us?
Healing and Reflection
Although our friend eventually recovered, he had in fact suffered a punctured lung and later developed a serious circulatory condition. And, while that Christmas does not rank among my favorites, it has become part of family legend as “the Christmas I saved a life”.
How factual that statement is, or involves a degree of exaggeration, is not for me to definitively say, but hearing it told each year has definitely been good for my self-esteem. True to his favorite phrase: “don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story”.
